Tuesday, September 02, 2008

This post was written by my awesome coach Lisa Hunter who has given me permission to reprint.

Extraordinary Women Dilemma: You're beating yourself up because you can't seem to turn off when it comes to your business. Whether you're excited about a new project and you're thinking about it while you're out having dinner with friends or you're trying to have the day off and your thoughts are dominated by the next thing that you need to do for your business, it's a strange mix of guilt, excitement, sometimes-worry and always a constant ants-in-your-pants feeling. You've tried "letting go", but that almost never works and then you just feel like an over-obsessed spaz.

What There Is For You To Know: The general sentiment for us passionately-driven entrepreneurial women is that we need to "balance" and tone down the obsession with our businesses. We hear it from friends, loved ones and we beat ourselves up for it. But here's the thing: being passionately-driven about your business is great for your business! It's when you come from a place of seeing that never-ending drive as "bad" and then trying to stop it, that you get into trouble.

You see, there is nothing wrong with you when you take a day off and you're not able to stop thinking about your business. It may not be the experience that you want to have, but you are not a workaholic or failing at balance. This is why when you say, "I've got to stop thinking about my business", it doesn't work. Because you actually can't stop that flow and you don't need to. In truth, it's a wonderful thing for your business that all this juice for it is pulsing through you.

It is nice, however, to be able to take a break from it! So here's how without having to stop the flow...

Think Like An Electrical Outlet: Picture a standard electrical outlet - the kind that has two places to plug stuff in and shows up in every room of just about every house ever made. Think about how there is always electrical current available in an outlet. It's present 24/7 and you can tap into it whenever you want by plugging something in.

As a passionately-driven entrepreneurial woman, your thoughts, "obsessions" and constant focus on your business are the same as the current in that electrical outlet - present and flowing all the time. It's on-tap juice for your business 24/7! But as go-getting women, we tend to naturally plug into that current all the time. The thing to remember is that, just as you do for your toaster or any other appliance, you can unplug from the current at will. The beauty of unplugging from the current is that you are not trying to stop the current and you're not feeling bad that the current is still flowing. You are allowing the current to keep doing it's thing AND you're unplugging so you can take a break.

Try It On The Fly: Experiment this week with unplugging from the constantly-flowing current of energy that you have for your business. When you're with your family or friends and your business is dominating your mind, rather than trying to stop this juicy flow of business energy, instead imagine yourself unplugging from it. Know that, while you're unplugged, the current is still there - full of energy and forward movement and ready to go once you decide to plug back in.

It's the trying to stop the flow of thoughts and energy for your business that gets you into trouble. And thinking there's something wrong with you for not being able to stop it. But you can't stop it because it's naturally "on" all the time! You can, however, unplug for stretches at a time. Play around with it and let me know how it goes...